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Android tablet available free space is lower than expected

This article provides the information on "Dell Android tablet users report that available free storage space on their device is lower than expected".

Free storage space is low

Dell Android tablet users may discover that available free storage space on their device is lower than they originally expected.

For devices with 16GB of base memory:

Venue 7 - 3730

Venue 7 - 3740

Venue 8 - 3830

Venue 8 - 3840

Venue 8 - 7840

Venue 10 - 5050

Venue 10 - 7040 (Some had an option for 32GB but default was 16GB)

You may discover that less memory is available for applications, photos, etcetera is less than you expected. This is due to a limitation of the Android operating system on devices with this 1GB of RAM.

Devices sold with 16GB of memory will have total physical storage space of 15,634,268,160 bytes.

Drive capacities as described and marketed by the drive manufacturers, the gigabyte is defined standard base 10 numeration as 1,000,000,000 bytes (109). The operating system, which works on binary numeration, defines a gigabyte as 1,073,741,824 bytes (230) which leads to the operating system reporting fewer gigabytes (The difference in defining a GB as 1,000,000,000 bytes or 1,073,741,824 bytes) but the same amount of total bytes of storage space.

Of this available storage space, 2 to 3GB of space is reserved by the Android operating system. Another 2 to 3GB of storage space is reserved for operating system cache and roughly 1GB is reserved for the operating system recovery image and other incidentals.

The remaining 8-9GB of storage space is available for user data storage.

Solution options

The system is working within Android operating system design parameters.

This issue affects all Android devices with 16GB configurations.

If you require additional storage space and your specific Tablet/Android version will support it, a MicroSD storage card can be added to expand your storage space.

If your system does not support this capability, photos, music, and other user data can be stored in cloud services available from various cloud storage vendors.